Sample Assignments and Student Work

Below please find two examples of how my assignments allow students to engage with the course materials in creative ways that require a deep understanding of the linguistic, cultural, and stylistic complexities of the different topics.

Intermediate German 2: Create your own Telenovela

Over the course of three weeks in my intermediate German 2 class, we discussed the telenovela Jojo sucht das Glück, produced by Deutsche Welle, which introduced the students to a variety of culturally relevant topics through a genre that is easily accessible. For their end-of-semester projects, students were asked to conceptualize, script, and film their own telenovela, which was to draw on their understanding of the genre in order to engage with a topic that was relevant to their lives. Below please find one example for the kind of work the students produced based on thisassignment.

Beginning German 2: Die Mauer im Kopf Comic

In the second half of my beginning German 2 class, we discussed the Graphic Novel "Berlin-Geteilte Stadt," which features several short stories about people's experiences of living with the Berlin Wall. We spent quite some time grappling with the concept of "Die Mauer im Kopf," analyzing the significance of this idea in the post-unification German context, in order to then investigate its more global implications. At the end of this unit, students were asked to create their own comic strip engaging with a "Mauer im Kopf" they have had to overcome. Below please find one example comic a student produced based on thisassignment.

All student work used with the students' permission to feature it on my website, and to include it in my printed teaching portfolio."Berlin-Geteilte Stadt" was first adapted for our German 102 curriculum by my colleagues Claire Scott and Matt Hambro.